


Every Version of Yourself (When I Break, It's in a Million Pieces)

by sweeterthankarma



Series: SKAM Fic Challenge August 2020 [9]
Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Character Study, Compulsory Heterosexuality, F/F, F/M, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbian Vilde Lien Hellerud, Season/Series 04, Sexual Repression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25837384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeterthankarma/pseuds/sweeterthankarma
Summary: To Vilde, there are about three versions of herself that exist. (Maybe four.)
Relationships: Eva Kviig Mohn/Vilde Lien Hellerud, Magnus Fossbakken/Vilde Lien Hellerud, Vilde Lien Hellerud/Noora Amalie Sætre
Series: SKAM Fic Challenge August 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867486
Comments: 10
Kudos: 5





	Every Version of Yourself (When I Break, It's in a Million Pieces)

**Author's Note:**

> For thirty one days, I'll be writing and posting SKAM fics inspired by the prompts listed [here](https://www.writerswrite.co.za/31-writing-prompts-for-august-2020/). These fics will be anywhere from 100-1,000 words approximately, will be for different characters and relationships, canon and non-canon, within the original Norwegian SKAM universe. All fics will stand alone. Check out the prompt list and let me know if you have any ideas for what you'd like me to write on a specific day!
> 
> Day 9 Prompt: Pepsi.
> 
> Title comes from the song "Mirrorball" by Taylor Swift, which is such a Vilde song.

To Vilde, there are about three versions of herself that exist. (Maybe four.)

The first is the Vilde that lives in the daytime,  _ thrives _ in the daytime. Pencil skirts, pink lipgloss, yellow nail polish and a disposition that’s just as sunny, everyone knows her and if they don’t like her, she doesn’t care, or at least she tries not to. Vilde’s got too much going on with her people to really notice anyway, and for that, she’s thankful. If she didn’t have a wall up around her, more interesting things going on with Eva and Noora and Isak to distract her attention and occupy her time, she’d probably feel worse. Worse than she does in the nighttime, which is of course the second version of herself. The version she always seems to feel the most deeply, the version that hides underneath the surface and occupies all her other facets in the fight to keep it from breaking through. 

Vilde sheds her puffer jacket in the doorway, shelves it as easy as she discards every other part of herself that isn’t absolutely mandatory when she’s at home. Vilde’s got tasks to do here, far more than school could pile onto her, and homework comes last, anyway. Top priority is medicine, fluffed pillows and dinner and forehead kisses on greying, crinkling skin. Mama hums her thanks, sometimes reaches out a hand to clasp Vilde’s, and just as quickly as the touch comes, Vilde will wash it away, showering and shaving and looking in the mirror and sucking in her stomach and trying not to cry. 

She doesn’t think she’s lovable. Doesn’t think she’d love herself if she were anyone else, if she were a boy, even one like Magnus, who’s so dorky and sweet and a little clueless sometimes, but it’s okay because Vilde’s clueless too. 

More than clueless, actually. Because that thought stays with her for awhile: the creeping loneliness, the perpetual despair, the approaching quickness of death, and the cruciality of identity that comes along with all of it. 

_ Vilde doesn’t think she’d love herself if she were anyone else. If she were a boy, obviously. Because she never thinks about being a girl who likes girls. Not at all. Never. Of course not. _

And that’s where she ends up, overwhelmed by the third version of herself as she sips cheap champagne that tastes like overpriced seltzer Noora’s apartment lights. Or under Eva’s slanted roof, or under a dance hall roof littered with flickering lights and shimmering disco balls. Vilde shoves on heels and ripped tights, catches her fingers in the holes when she stands on the tram beside her friends, so close their shoulders touch. Noora’s hand reaches for hers when she sees William on the other side of the car, far away and shooting them both a pointed but neutral glance. He always looks like that. So bored, so  _ boring. _ So bland. Vilde doesn’t get what Noora sees in him. She’s ignoring him, but still. Vilde knows something’s up.

_ Vilde doesn’t get what Noora sees in him, so she talks about him herself. Says she loves his hair and his mouth, says it looks heart shaped because apparently that’s a thing that girls like. A thing that girls  _ should  _ like. _

__ “Do we have to talk about boys all the time?” Noora asks her after she’s rambled on for a good minute and a half, and Vilde feigns irritation. Tries to convince herself she really is irritated when she’s really thinking  _ god, I wish we didn’t. _

She doesn’t have to convince herself once they’re at the club. She orders shots, shares them with Eva and Chris, and when the room gets blurry and starts to spin more than her own body does, Eva pulls her in, kisses her hard. 

It’s relief. 

Eva tastes like Pepsi and cheap rum. Some guy had just bought her a shot, is ordering Vilde one too now, watching them, whistling. 

“Love lesbians,” he comments to his friends after ushering them over, and Vilde’s too wasted to care, too gone to fuel her automatic protests that generate daily in her brain like her life depends on it:  _ I’m not a lesbian.  _

She downs the shot, goes back to kissing Eva. It feels like happiness, like truth, like possibility, and that feeling lasts long after the liquor has settled in her bloodstream, long after the boys leave. 

(The fourth version of Vilde is who she is when the boys don’t leave. Magnus touches her, gentle and appreciative, and she leans in, tries to feel the comfort in his touch more than the desire. She knows he loves her. She knows she likes him. He’s not bad, he’s really not. He’s attractive. Friendly. He’s fine.

She sucks his dick, lets him suck her tits, doesn’t allow it to go any further than that. She tells herself she likes thinking of it like that, vulgarity far safer than intimacy. She tells Eva and Noora and Sana that she’s having sex when she isn’t. She tells herself this is enough, in the same breath she tells herself that  _ someday, _ it’ll be enough. Vilde tells herself she wants it, and tells herself that someday, she will.) 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, please let me know! Comments and kudos make my day. 
> 
> Come say hi at my Tumblr blog [here!](https://sweeterthankarma.tumblr.com/)


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